The latest topical insights from Aberdeen musical sketch comedy team, The Flying Pigs.
Ron Cluny, official council spokesman
It’s no shock that Boris Johnson, who has the look of someone who spent his formative years smoking other people’s cigarettes round the back of the bike sheds, has been fined for attending lockdown parties.
But, how to deal with the news that, for the first time ever, a sitting prime minister has been found to have broken the law; a law formulated by his government and enforced unwaveringly in hospitals, homes and hospices, at weddings and funerals, across the land?
“Deflect, divide, distract” is the mantra I was taught at spin doctor school, and I suspect that the UK Government’s communications team were on the same course.
That brainstorming session must have been an emotional rollercoaster. Elation when some bright spark says: “Why don’t we claim that everyone else was whooping it up after work too?” Despair as it dawns on them that no self-respecting politician would ever spin such an odious lie.
Then, joy when they remember: “We don’t need a self-respecting politician, we have Michael Fabricant!” And out he comes, like the unhappy reminder of an ill-considered liaison between Worzel Gummidge and a Shih Tzu, to try to drag the nation’s nurses and teachers down into the – what’s lower than the gutter? – the storm drain inhabited by his boss.
Deflect and divide? Done. Next, distract.
“The war in Ukraine! We can’t dump Boris while Putin’s on the march!” As if any moderately competent leader couldn’t toe exactly the same line as Johnson, and as if Russia’s, and by extension the world’s, current problems weren’t rooted in institutional dishonesty and a complete lack of accountability.
If that’s not enough, asylum seekers are to be given a one-way ticket to Rwanda. Well, that is the sort of policy I could get behind. As long as Boris Johnson and Priti Patel volunteer to road test the arrangement.
View From The Midden with Jock Alexander
It’s been a sustainable wik in the village. We’ve been inspired by Aiberdeen’s Greyhope Bay Centre, a new eco-friendly base for dolphin spotting at the Torry Battery, wi’ fit they’ve cried the “best view in Aiberdeen”. And, looking at some o’ the latest picters o’ Union Street, I fairly think they’re richt.
The fowk in charge hiv pit the hale jing-bang inside auld gless-fronted shipping containers; an admirable bit o’ repurposing and an example tae those in the village nae a’ready living in converted dung silos.
It’s “aff the grid”, fit struck a chord. Oor only grid is the cattle een fit we use tae trap toonsers in unsuitable footwear.
But their pièce (or possibly poos?) de résistance are state o’ the art eco-loos fit use wind and sunlight tae brak doon organic waste. They dinna need watter nor electricity. Ideal for Meiklewartle, as mony hames here dinna hae such space-age luxuries.
We’re affa keen tae tap intae that same tourist mairket, but there is one main problem facing the Meiklewartle Eco-friendly Dry-composting Cludgies and Dolphin Watching Cinter. We dinna hae nae sea.
But, niver fash. Deficient though we maybe in ocean views and marine mammals, at least we can be sure Meiklewartle’s dry-composting loos will be a success; because naeb’dy can touch us for sharn. Cheerio!
Kenny Cordiner, the football pundit who is full of emulsion
Football has changed since I applied my trade. Some things has gotten worser, like how you’re not allowed to half someone early doors without getting a booking, but the rise of women’s football is a change for the betterer.
Ex-Killie gaffer Kenny Shiels has been going great guns as boss of Northern Ireland’s women, until he got a dose of foot-in-mouth disease in the post-match press conference after they got stuffed 5-0 by England.
Kenny says his team had gone to pieces because women is more emulsional than men. Installationally, a horde of lassies got in a right strop and told him he couldn’t not be more wrong.
Disappointed in Kenny Shiels comments… not “outraged”. He knew straight away he shouldn’t have said it… but let’s not get distracted from the positives. The expressions on those young girls faces in that sold out crowd. Pride is the only emotion we should all be feeling.
— Holly Hamilton (@HollyHNews) April 13, 2022
Shielser issued an apology the next day, but the point is, now that lassies is part of proper football, you just can’t not say stuff like that which isn’t not polyptically incorrect.
Back in my day, the closest you ever got to a woman at the football was Glenda, the wifie who sold macaroon bars in the Main Stand at Pittodrie. These days, every club has a ladies’ team and, in a ringing enforcement of the women’s game, there’s even a female version of Match of the Day.
I really enjoy that show. It’s great that the girls are getting their well-deserved share of the spotlight, and sexualism in football is a thing of the past. Plus, they’re a lot easier on the eye than Danny Murphy.
